


a breakdown (of the nights events)

by zenexit



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Author Projecting onto Richie Tozier, Canon Compliant, Canon Gay Character, Character Analysis, Character Study, Denial of Feelings, Feelings Realization, First Love, Flashbacks, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Memory Related, Mutual Pining, Mutually Unrequited, Only one bed...., Richie Tozier's Internalized Homophobia, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, Young Love, alcohol mention, and ofc, cant believe thats a tag by itself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:40:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23082613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zenexit/pseuds/zenexit
Summary: The Derry Townhouse remained in business due to yearly events that would bring in a small count of tourists to the hidden away small town of Derry, Maine.When the Losers come in during the busy season, not everyone is as prepared as they should be for the visit.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	a breakdown (of the nights events)

**Author's Note:**

> i've been dying in school so i haven't had the chance to really read or write anything for reddie. i'm sorry if this or anything else i write during spring break has been done a million times lol

The Derry Townhouse that the Losers stayed in wasn’t one they had made out of choice. When it came to the small town of Derry Maine, there wasn’t a particularly large range of options. Although it might have been a nice thought to think they had coincidentally chosen the same small inn due to secret bonds between them leading them to the same place… It was actually much more left up to the simple fact there was only one inn. Derry wasn’t particularly known for its tourism industry. Rather, it wasn’t known for anything at all, even if it did have some pretty remarkable statistics. At least, it did in the crime department. 

Some of the Losers had planned out their sudden vacation back to small town roots a little bit better than others. That is to say, Richie hadn’t bothered to call ahead at an Inn he knew barely managed to stay open. What he, or any of the Losers, hadn’t anticipated was the carnival being in town and how Derry might manage to actually make people want to come to it. In fact, the vast majority of his friends had already checked in at the hotel. Richie had stopped by the Townhouse in a rush and had left his bags with an attendant, telling him how he would check in later and request them up to his room. Eddie waited behind Richie, wanting to request something at the front desk for his room that he was smart enough to call beforehand to get.

The smile stretching across Richie’s face fell quickly talking to the receptionist. A smile that just before had been aimed at Eddie right after a dry quip Kaspbrak was less enthused than Richie about.

“No rooms? What, did the place flood?” Richie asked dryly. It was half of a joke, as Derry hadn’t been particularly good in the past about its water levels. As seen in case in the day George Denberough had been swept up into a storm drain in the Loser’s youth. Huh, that was a memory that seemed a little out of place. 

“No rooms left, we’re completely booked up with the fair in town.” The girl at the counter said dryly. Her eyes were tired, bracing for impact on Richie’s reaction. 

Aside from Eddie behind him, all of the other losers had already said their goodbyes before they had all lined up to get into their individual rooms like it was a school lunch. Shuffling away with their suitcases while Richie and Eddie were bickering, leaving the two of them completely alone. Meaning, it wasn’t like Richie had a whole room to poll asking for help.

Eddie’s brown eyes quickly moved from Richie’s face, to the girl at the check in desk, and back to Richie. His dark eyebrows were pulled together, his mouth tight lipped. Richie could practically hear the mental process in his head, could almost see the steam pouring out of his stupid perfectlty shaped ears. Richie offered him what he considered his most hopeful and happy grin. One that said,  _ oh please Eddie dear, don’t you want to offer to help me in some way? _

“Did you have the reservation for Kaspbrak?” Eddie asked, stepping forward. He got up closer to the counter than Richie had been. “Spelled K-A-S-P-B-R-A-K. Should be under Edward.”

Huh, it seemed like Richie wasn’t the only idiot who hadn’t checked in properly earlier. 

Promptly the girl at the counter began typing into the computer. An amount of typing Richie was sure was unnecessary, but what did he know? He had never worked at a hotel, but to him it had always looked like something idle and fake hotel people did to look busy while the computer loaded more slowly than most guests could handle. Eddie slid an ID and a credit card across the counter unprompted, clearly used to staying in hotels. Richie watched all this silently, still trying to keep up a kind of stupid smile, hoping it would guilt either of them into wanting to help him.

Richard Tozier had a lot of faces, a lot of voices, he found very easy to slip into. Before he was able to cut it on the standup scene, he had done practically anything that would pay his bills. He had done a shitty AM radio station in his backyard for example, with ravings of a wild child protesting anything and everything. He had also filled up the air space with voices of his, characters and people who didn’t exist until Richie got to droll them out happily on an air he wasn’t sure anyone was listening to. There was something good in doing that, in making or performing a character for standup everyone thought was Richie Tozier. In performing a fake silly man on the radio. Something so deeply pleasing in not being Richie Tozier, for escaping his own thoughts and person and becoming something completely different.

“We have it sir, and your bags you checked in earlier under that name have already been dropped off.” The girl said back plainly. She ran the two cards through the machine and turned to hand a quickly printed receipt off to Eddie along with a room key that was an actual key with the number eight on it.

“Do you need anything else today?”

Eddie looked sideways at Richie, a guilty look in his eyes as he continued to think about what to say. Richie smiled brightly at him.

“Do you have the bags dropped off under Tozier still?” Richie asked the girl hopefully. She sighed in response and began to ruffle through records Richie knew at any other hotel would probably be nowhere near this front desk. It took her only a few moments to collect everything she needed, and Richie was a little amazed at how organized she was.

“We do have them. Do you want us to bring them out to you?”

“Actually, can you just bring them to Mr.Kaspbrak’s room, please?” Richie asked, trusting his gut. The woman sighed and nodded and wrote something down on a paper. 

Eddie opened his mouth to complain, and probably yell at Richie, but he cut him off with a loud thank you to the receptionist while grabbing everything on the counter and tugging Eddie away.

  
  


After getting to the room, to no one’s surprise, there was of course only one bed. It wasn’t very long before Eddie was calling the front desk and nagging them about bringing down extra pillows and blankets, an extra cot, and of course pestering about where Richie’s bags were.

It was funny, how little time had seemed to change Eddie. Richie couldn’t help his eyes from falling on Eddie’s ring finger, the small silver band sitting there in an almost mocking way. Saying,  _ look at me! Eddie is married! And not to you jackhole! _ Richie wanted to shake him after that, his skin crawling in a weird way he couldn’t explain. All of this, it felt out of place. Like something on the tip of his tongue. A foggy abscess in his mind he didn’t know he should try to reach for, or to run from.

When Eddie finally hung up the phone Richie smiled at him, as devilishly handsome of a smile he thought he was capable of. 

“Stuck with me in your bed, huh?” Richie asked knowingly. Eddie would be shit to be in a hostage situation with, he repeated every line he heard from the other end of the phone. Eddie let out a loud groan in response.

“You know you can’t just invite yourself into people’s hotel rooms, right? You know that’s fucked up, right?” Eddie began, his hands already moving to point and slap his hands in agitation.

Richie hummed in response and walked over to a minifridge he knew would be filled with overpriced snacks. Or in this case, two bottles of tall water and one half assed bag of trailmix. Richie frowned and only grabbed the $6 water to drink from. Something in the back of his head had reminded him then of Eddie’s allergies. Ones he hadn’t been at the restaurant to overhear, but remembered anyway. Strange. 

“Oh and now you’re going to run up my bill. Great fucking job Trashmouth, just act like you own the place and then I know you’re going to run out on the check.” Eddie said, waving his hand wildly at the water.

Richie gave a little snort while he sipped on his water. 

“Dude, it’s fine. I can pay for the whole room if you want me to.” He said this almost boredly. Since making it, money hadn’t been really an issue for Richie anymore, and that was in LA. Richie knew he could buy practically anything he wanted here in this tiny town of Derry and probably not even see his bank balance budge. Eddie was probably well off too, considering his job seemed like it revolved around firing everyone in businesses he didn’t work for. But hell if Richie even knew what a risk analyst was, it definitely wasn’t the sort of thing a kid would say he wanted to be when he grew up.

Eddie mumbled a few things under his breath then and moved around the room, picking things up as he went. He had some large blue bag in his hands and tugged it with him into the bathroom. 

“I’m going to take a shower.” Eddie announced from the bathroom, and then walked about out as if suddenly worrying Richie would not be able to hear him.

“Alright Eds, I can behave while you’re gone. I won't throw some mad party in the next twenty minutes.” Richie said with a laugh and worked on settling in the room. 

While Eddie was gone, Richie tried to hum to himself under his breath trying to keep his mind busy. He put his suitcases when they arrived in a good corner of the room, trying to make sure Eddie still felt like he had his space. It wasn’t a particularly big room, but Eddie did get a king bed so they would both fit on it just fine tonight. When Richie was done gathering his things, he changed into something to sleep in. Blue flannel pants with cigarette holes burned into them from the few times he or someone else had fallen asleep around him smoking. Those pants and whatever comfortable shirt was on top of his shit. 

Richie locked eyes with the bed itself. It looked like a regular run of the mill hotel bed, sheets and blanket neatly tucked around all corners. Richie went ahead and began tugging at it, pulling the large comforter untucked so he would be able to sleep with his feet hanging out the bottom of it. After that, he walked lazily over to the air and turned it town a few degrees. He ran hot when he slept. Richie didn’t stop to think and wonder about how Eddie might feel about this.

One thing Richie wasn’t so sure about, was how little this all bothered him. Here he was just standing in a hotel room he was going to be sharing with another man. And not just any man, but Eddie Kaspbrak, a childhood friend of his he had forgotten he had until less than twenty four hours ago. It should have been enough to make him want to run from here and never come back, hell everything that happened tonight should have done it. But once they were all back at the hotel, and had made the choice to stay and hear Mike out, there wasn’t really going to be any changing it. But Eddie… There was something about him that made Richie feel different than the rest of the Losers did. Something about him he knew he was missing was a piece of that he couldn’t find. Like a puzzle that wasn’t complete, and Richie already knew he had lost about twenty pieces, but he was still trying to solve it. 

Richie crawled into bed then and stared at the ceiling for whatever time he had left before Eddie finished up in the shower. It was a popcorn ceiling, the kind you could tell was just due to budget cuts, because who the hell would willingly want a popcorn ceiling? 

Something about Eddie was just pulling at his heartstrings. He felt like he was on high alert, and everything Eddie did seemed to hit twice as hard. For whatever reason, Richie knew he could list off everything Eddie had done or said that night. It wasn’t that Richie wasn’t observant of his friends, it just seemed to be hyper focused on Eddie and everything he was doing. Richie could tell you everything Eddie spit out into his napkin that night, or all the different drinks he had drank, or those he had pretended to. There had been alcohol at dinner of course, but nothing to even stir a buzz in Richie.

Richie felt some sort of guilt stirring up inside of him when he thought about Eddie being married. Or, maybe it wasn’t guilt. Was it pity, for whatever poor woman had gotten saddled with marrying him? Was it… Jealousy? Richie swallowed then.

Was there some part of him, buried deep inside his repressed (but by who?) memories of Eddie, where he yearned for him? Did he forget some sort of long forgotten feelings for his best friend? Richie frowned then. Had Eddie been his best friend, or was it Bill? He had spent every day with Eddie though, hadn’t he? Days spent with the Losers together, or days where they had spent it huddled at the arcade just the two of them. On those days their interactions would be filled with loud laughing and jeers at each other. Days where Eddie and Richie had spent as long as they could at Richie’s house, before Eddie’s mom would come banging on the door for her son to come home. 

Or the days that had been Richie’s favorites, during weekends where him and Eddie had somehow persuaded Mrs. K to let Eddie come over and spend the night, or vice versa. Where the two of them would share a room, a bed. Richie would lay there with Eddie, pressed tight against his back while the two were snuggled under blankets. It didn’t matter what the temperature was, Eddie was always cold and Richie was always hot. They’d lay like that, almost spooning every night they could, while Richie’s heart felt like it was about to burst out of his chest. His hands would be sweaty, so he’d cling to the pillows above their heads and hope and pray maybe Eddie’s would brush his.

Richie was laying there in bed, still staring up at the ceiling, while his head and heart raced with memories he didn’t know he had forgotten. Desires he didn’t know he had. Suddenly, there were nerves flicking up at him while laying there. Maybe he should have packed better pants to sleep in? Hell, Richie didn’t usually sleep in pants at all, so this alone should be impressive. Not that Eddie would know that though, he had certainly always worn pants to bed when he stayed over. Richie’s hands were clammy and his throat felt like it had something stuck in it. This shit had to stop right away.

The water turned off in the distance as Eddie finally finished up. Richie listened faintly for a moment while Eddie was getting out and grabbing a towel, before realizing he had been sitting there doing nothing. Richie leaned over and grabbed the TV remote off the table and rushed to turn it on and pull out the guide. He settled on the first acceptable thing he could,  _ Forensic Files _ . Satisfied, Richie did his best to look politely interested in the TV when Eddie stepped out of the bathroom. 

Eddie’s hair was wet, but he had clearly tried to comb it to the side to stop it from dripping in his face. He had a loose towel around his waist, and Richie suddenly felt very insecure about any and all body fat he had put on since being thirteen years old. Eddie looked like he went to the gym every single day, and Richie was willing to bet he did with how much of a health nut he used to be. Riche subconsciously licked his lips for a moment looking at Eddie and the glint of water on him and then caught himself acting like a horny teenager. He grinned instead at his old friend.

“You forget your clothes pal?” Richie teased.

Eddie rolled his eyes so hard Richie could see it from across the room. He remembered suddenly Eddie wasn’t aware he did that, like actually rolled his eyes, and snickered a bit under his breath.

“Well, you look hot. If I looked like that I would forget my clothes too.” Richie said appreciatively and then looked casually back at the TV. He had no idea what the hell was happening in this episode, but he could pretend he did and not like he wanted to stare at Eddie for hours on end. Half naked and wet like that, it gave a man ideas. 

“Okay dude, whatever.” Eddie said absentmindedly. He moved to his suitcase and worked on getting his things out while Richie did his best to mind his own business and watch Eddie work. He managed, for the most part. 

When Eddie left to get changed Richie let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding in. Closing his eyes tight he breathed slowly and deeply for a few moments, trying to remind himself how to act like a normal person again with regular breathing habits. The kind of person who wasn’t thirsting for a man he had forgotten existed and now had to share a bed with. 

Eddie came out in a matching pajama set. Blue top matching blue pants he frowned and rubbed his arms a bit before climbing into the other half of the bed. There was enough space where he and Richie wouldn’t be at risk of touching each other, but not enough to where Richie couldn’t feel electricity shooting between him and Eddie. His body felt like it had been turned up to a degree it didn’t know it could be.

Hell, Richie had been with men before but it hadn’t felt like this. It hadn’t made him feel like a teenager stranded on some beach in the middle of nowhere, gasping loudly for air. His lungs and sides burning while he tried desperately to come back to shore, but didn’t know which way was up and which was down. Derry had some undertow to it, and Richie suddenly couldn’t remember how to swim. 

“You got enough space?” Richie asked, flicking his eyes over at Eddie. 

Eddie chuckled a bit and looked back at Richie in the same way. “What, are you feeling bad suddenly about inviting yourself over?”

“No, no, not at all.” Richie said with a laugh. He yawned then, in a fake sort of way, and stretched himself out every which way across the bed. Richie’s foot and arm bumped into Eddie when he did this, and his heart sped up. He was making excuses to touch him again, like a boy who was too afraid to say who he was. 

Not that Richie had ever come out exactly. The only men who knew Richie was gay, where the few that he had slept with. The kind of men he had met in bars, or at his shows. The kinds who didn’t know him, and wouldn’t have any expectations of him for him to let down. Maybe his mom knew, Richie had a sinking feeling Miss Maggie Tozier knew, but she sure as hell hadn’t brought it up to her son. There was no way Richie wanted to change any of this. He wanted to control what people thought of when they saw him, and being gay wasn’t in that equation exactly. 

Richie flipped on his side to grin at Eddie like they were back in school, conspiring and whispering at each other during the dead of night. Desperately hoping Eddie’s mom wouldn’t wake up, but needing to get out whatever was so important to them at the time.

“Hey Eds?” Richie asked.

Eddie looked down at him, then looked up just as quickly. It had to have been just Richie’s imagination, but it felt like there was a soft pink to Eddie’s cheeks then. A pink even the hot water hadn’t caused in Eddie’s face from his shower. He was holding the blankets by his chest tightly. 

“Yes, Richard”? Eddie asked back, voice careful.

“I’m not going to say this again, but I’m glad I’m spending time with you again.”

Eddie made a noise, and went to speak but Richie quickly cut him off. 

“Shh, don’t ruin this with words sexy.” Richie said reaching out to put a finger to Eddie’s lips who let out a loud laugh in response.

“Dude, you’re the exact same huh?” Eddie asked, still laughing.

Richie grinned from ear to ear, even if he didn’t feel quite like smiling. Maybe he was the exact same, but he had forgotten about all of this, so was it really some pathetic rut he was stuck in? If a tree didn’t know it was in a forest and it fell- wait, that didn’t make any sense. 

“I guess so, love, I guess so.” Richie mused in response. His eyes went back to the TV then, watching some scientist somewhere explain something about lab work. 

There was something burning between the two of them, or at least on Richie’s end. Something soft and strong, packed with feelings neither even knew had been there. Ones right below the surface, and like a balloon, and finally popped and released back up to the air. Richie wasn’t sure what would happen from here. His mouth was dry while he thought about it, about not knowing how any of this bullshit with this clown was going to go down. About not knowing how to do anything with Eddie, or say anything, or if maybe past him was right and it was better to let it fill the silences instead. 

**Author's Note:**

> i wanted to write a one bed fic and it kind of turned into this instead? well, here we are. sorry it's kind of lack luster.  
> i just wanted to write a thing as a warmup for the big fic i have planned for reddie, and wanted to practice with an analysis of them. hope you like it.


End file.
